Word: mortars
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...battle, he reported, involved a Viet Cong attack on the high school, where more than 200 recently inducted 16-and 17-year-old boys and girls were garrisoned. A Cambodian officer who remained in radio contact with the group throughout a night filled with thundering mortar fire and the clatter of machine guns, said the terrified students cried into the radio "like a baby crying at night for its mother." But they were ordered to hold out, and they did. Two of their number, a 17-year-old girl and a teacher, were killed, but the youthful recruits drove back...
Rocket and mortar attacks have become almost a rarity. In the Mekong Delta (IV Corps), enemy gunners during the month of May loosed not a single round of 122-mm. rocket fire (v. 25 rounds normally) and only two rounds of 107-mm. rockets (v. an average of nearly 100). Says one U.S. officer: "I don't know whether the enemy is short of ammunition, but he certainly seems to be firing less...
...seven million South Vietnamese-nearly half of the population of the country-now live in concentration camps. Some of the camps are near the major cities, but many are placed around American army bases to absorb the NLF mortar attacks. Saigon now has 2,800,000 people in it, making it the densest city in the world-twice as crowded as Tokyo...
...involvement in Cambodia could eventually upset Vietnamization. The Communists, meanwhile, have yet to substantiate a related criticism−that the Cambodian operation will directly imperil South Viet Nam. Across South Viet Nam last week, the enemy did try to mount a special one-day "high point" with rocket and mortar attacks on 64 towns and outposts. But even with nearly 60,000 U.S. and ARVN troops off in Cambodia, the sputtering high added up to a very low-key celebration of Ho Chi Minn's 80th birthday...
...Bassac River. For five days, a Viet Cong and North Vietnamese force of undetermined size-perhaps only 100 men-held the town against a force of 4,000 Cambodian troops, who arrived in a fleet of commandeered buses and trucks. Only after the Cambodians had plastered Saang with artillery, mortar fire and air attacks for four days did they dare enter the half-destroyed town. It was empty...